


Ascension

by KivaEmber



Category: Original Work
Genre: Demons and Angels and Fallen oh my!, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, Morally Ambiguous Protagonist, Multi, Psychological Trauma, Religious Fanaticism, Torture, society based around devouring gods, urban/dark fantasy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-11
Updated: 2015-04-11
Packaged: 2018-03-22 10:16:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3725128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KivaEmber/pseuds/KivaEmber
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Welcome to Sodom, a megacity that has the nasty habit of devouring its gods. Constantly going through Ascensions and Corruptions, where Gods rise and then, inevitably, fall, there is no such thing as moral stability there. With districts ruled by soul-grubbing demons, and fallen beginning to outnumber the few angels left, the city is slowly yet surely turning itself into its own personal hell.</p><p>Perfect for Azamat, a fallen whose only goal in life is to have as much sinful fun as possible, but when he accepts a job from a powerful demon called Beatrice, he'll find himself woefully tangled up in the Ascension of a new God - with him as their unwilling herald.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ascension

**Author's Note:**

> This is something I wrote a very long time ago, but wanted to continue it if only because the premise of my idea fascinates me. It was inspired, mostly, by Three Parts Dead, by Max Gladstone, and I wanted to give a try at building a megacity where dealings with demons, angels and gods were a common part of life for the humans that lived there. I also wanted to try writing a story with a protagonist that's more like a villain, and see how they turn out - for better or worse - at the end.
> 
> I welcome constructive criticism and pointers, since this is my first original story and I don't sadly don't have a beta reader. If I'm poorly explaining the world, or my characters are acting weird or unnatural, please don't hesitate to point it out! 
> 
> I will say, this story will be MATURE, in that, there will be disturbing, sexual and violent themes in this, as well as exploring what religion is exactly. Most of these won't be explicit, but they will exist, just as a forewarning.

Sodom’s downtown was booming.

Unsurprising, considering it was Friday evening. The streets were crowded with staggering bodies, humans and demons alike, the tang of alcohol so thick in the air Azamat could feel himself getting drunk just off the fumes alone. The babble of voices buzzed in his ear like an angry nest of bees, and he scowled sourly as he kicked an empty can along the street’s cobbled stones. It clattered into the drain.

He was out of place amongst the milling crowd – a bright red scarf against the dark, dreary colours of suits and hoodies, golden, shaggy hair, bright blue eyes, and an immaculate outfit that was more befitting of a waiter at a coffee shop. It was obvious from a glance that Azamat was on a higher payroll than that street  _combined_.

“Psst! Hey! Hey- you- th’ sour lookin’ Fallen! Heeeeey~”

Azamat stopped at the voice, very nearly getting bowled over when a boisterous group of humans in suits armed with briefcases almost stampeded him at his abrupt halt. He hurriedly stepped out from the chaotic stream of bodies, very nearly running into the person who hailed him.

Well, ‘person’ was too generous. The bleach white skeleton clattered at him, its fangs teeth jittering together like some childish wound up toy. Deep in its empty sockets, twin white dots rolled about, its head bobbing in a pigeon like fashion. Azamat got the impression that it was trying to shiftily look about with eyebrows it just didn’t possess. Hanging from its fragile body was a hoodie and a pair of boxers, looking a bit tattered about the edges, its hands buried deep into the hoodie’s pockets.

“What do you want?” Azamat asked, looking down at the skeleton with a small sneer. It was quite short – probably the skeleton of a twelve year old. Really now, did demons have no propriety whatsoever?

“So harsh, so harsh! No need t’look like that! Jus’ got a lil’, a lil’ y’know, whatchamacallit? Proposition!”

Azamat’s expression became suspicious. “A proposition…? I don’t even know you.”

“But I know  _you_!” the skeleton clattered, the jittering of its fanged teeth increasing in tempo. Azamat clenched his teeth in irritation. “Whatchamacallit? Good ol’ Beatrice sent me! ‘Look out fer th’ sour faced Fallen’ she said, and look! A sour faced Fallen!”

Azamat looked even sourer the moment ‘Beatrice’ left the skeleton’s lips- er, mouth. Beatrice, or, Big B as demons would whisper behind secluded pillars, was the Demonness who ruled this particular district of Sodom. She was a demon of pure Gluttony, a true connoisseur of food and souls. Eighty per cent of food produced in this district went down Beatrice’s gullet, and the Soul Industry had all but grinded to a halt when she bought out all the firms in this area. Needless to say, this district was the poorest out of all of Sodom, but the people were strangely happy here – or were too drunk to really reflect much on their circumstances. With barely any food to go round, everyone subsidised on alcohol instead.

“What does Big B want with me?”

“Oi, man, man, don’t say that name aloud like that! Dunno who’s listenin’, right?” the skeleton staged whispered, its head doing that pigeon bouncing thing again. It was making Azamat seasick. “Bu’, she’s got a- th’ proposition! That’s what she wants! There’s a big  _rumour_  she wants ya t’look into!”

“A… ‘rumour’?”

“Yeah, yeah. A  _rumour_ ,” the skeleton chittered, “’pparently, there’s a slaver in here, with somethin’ a bit… uhm, rare. She wants it, an’ you’re good with that stuff…”

Azamat’s jaw tightened. “Something she wants to eat, no doubt. What is it, a bound soul?”

“I dunno, I dunno. I don’t ask questions when I don’t gotta think about it,” the skeleton grumbled, “Bu’, I did overhear some things…”

There was a pause, one where the skeleton bobbed its head, eyes staring at Azamat as it slipped one bony hand out of its hoodie’s pocket. It held it out, wriggling its fingers as its jaws clattered in what passed as laughter. With a scowl, Azamat slapped a tiny soul shard on its bony palm.

“Just fuckin’ tell me.”

“’Course,” the skeleton squirrled the soul shard into its hoodie pocket, “Well, wha’ I heard was that it’s a, whatchamacallit? A  _Godling_.”

Azamat’s throat tightened up briefly, and it took him a moment to let out a strangled; “ _What_?”

“Yeah,” the skeleton ducked its head, muttering to the floor, “First Godling in decades – no,  _centuries!_ Thought that was th’ end of  _that_  when good ol’ Eli finally bit the dust.”

Eli had been the last Godling to Ascend over Sodom. It had a short reign of three thousand years before it had been corrupted by its followers, and fell through the Earth’s crust into the God’s Graveyard. By now, Sodom had devoured six Gods, spanning hundreds of thousands of years since the first, and their bones built the city’s foundation in what was called ‘The God’s Graveyard’. It was a tourist attraction now, one hundred soul shards to get in and take pictures of their rotting corpses. There was even a gift shop.

There hadn’t been a God after Eli since, and many thought that Sodom was going to be in an administrative black hole where the world’s maintenance was concerned. It seemed to be running itself fine, in any case.

“Does Big B want to eat it or what?”

“I dunno man, I dunno. If she has a Godling, maybe she’ll try to be one herself by eatin’ it? I dunno how all this ‘Ascention’ business works.”

Azamat frowned. It was entirely possible that Beatrice wanted to gobble up the Godling to obtain its powers – she could become the new Devil, whose throne had been sitting empty since Eli’s demise. There hadn’t been a demon who Descended in centuries.

Without a God to act as a foil, having Sodom run solely by a Devil was just asking for trouble, but Azamat didn’t think too deeply on it. Sodom was always running into some shitty situation, it was its permanent state of being, and so long as Big B paid him in full for collecting this Godling, what business was it of his? Azamat lived to drink, eat, fuck, and sleep – fretting about the state of humanity and demons was for the more idiotic of his kind.

“Alright, I’ll do it. Where is this Godling?”

“Th’ slavers holed up in one of th’ stripclubs on the border of Sawyer’s territory. Entrance fee’s high, but the flesh’s worth it, heheheh~”

Azamat didn’t question how a skeleton could enjoy ‘flesh’ without the proper sexual organs or nerve endings – he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. “Any specific club or am I blowing my money on checking out every one?”

“Foxy Boxes,” the skeleton replied, “That’s th’ place. S’got strong bouncers there, expensive drinks, and big tits,” a pause, “Or dicks, if ya into that. I don’t judge…”

Azamat simply turned away and pressed back into the flowing crowd. The border of Sawyer’s territory, huh? That place was dangerous – it was the more violent part of Sodom, where the demons reigned supreme. The humans that lived there were normally their slaves, fucktoys, whatever, and Fallen were, by unspoken rule, barred from ever setting foot there. Hopefully Foxy Boxes wasn’t too close to the border – dealing with slavers and stripclub bouncers was going to be annoying enough without vicious demons trying to tear his wings right out of his body.

He sighed, the noise swallowed up by the loud chatter around him, and buried his nose into his red scarf. A Godling, huh…? Something tugged in his chest at the thought, the base instincts of a Fallen stirring, but he ruthlessly crushed it.

It’s just for money. Just for money. 


End file.
